At initial glance the 2016 Volvo S60 Cross Country may appear adore a bit of an outlier on the crossover scene. At its core, the S60 Cross Country shares almost every little thing along with the standard S60 sedan – its mechanical bits, interior, and all its sheet metal – along with a couple of notable exceptions. many obvious is the enhance that’s been offered to the Cross Country’s ride height, which offers you 7.9 inches of clearance ought to you elect to take the all-wheel drive Volvo off the beaten path. You’ll additionally notice the car’s flared fenders and skid plate up front that’s created to protect the engine, all which with each other serve to ruggedize the European four-door’s visual presence.

It’s a familiar formula for Volvo, which has actually been applying the ‘Cross Country’ moniker to its family of wagons for well over a decade now. On the long-roof adverse it’s been a success, along with Volvo even replacing its traditional full-size V70 family offering exclusively along with a Cross Country edition for several years. On the sedan side, the brand has actually taken a much more measured approach: just a small lot of these jacked-up S60 models have actually been allotted to the U.S. market, as the firm examinations out a ‘niche’ strategy created to energize customer interest while preserving progression costs low. It’s a philosophy that has actually worked well for the German rivals in Volvo’s luxury crosshairs, particularly BMW.

Out on the road, the 2016 Volvo S60 Cross Country feels almost identical to the standard version of the car. The turbocharged five-cylinder motor in the T5 edition I drove offered a nice snarl from its 2.5-liters of displacement, and 250 horsepower and 266 lb-ft of torque were much more compared to enough to motivate the mid-size model. Handling wasn’t noticeably compromised by the Cross Country’s taller stance, and from several angles the sedan’s beefier profile added a touch of aggression passing up from the routine S60.

The S60 Cross Country could be a brand-new addition to the Volvo line-up, yet it comes from a long line of crossovers that didn’t stray also far from their passenger auto roots. Let’s take a check out the history of the car-based crossover and Examine out the pioneers that paved the means for Volvo’s latest model.

By Choogler (Own work)

1980-1987 AMC Eagle

With its available wood paneling and aggressive 4×4 stance, the AMC Eagle is an unmistakable icon of thinking outside the automotive box. Available not simply in sedan form yet additionally as a coupe and a wagon, the AMC Eagle snagged its platform from the automaker’s Concord sedan and ran along with it all of the means in to the deep woods. Despite the fact that largely uncelebrated except by enthusiasts and AMC brand diehards, the Eagle was unquestionably the initial ‘crossover’ auto prior to the term had ever even been coined, and remains among the couple of AMC automobiles to still linger in the public memory 30 years after the firm was absorbed by Chrysler.

1995-present Subaru Outback

The Subaru Outback is considered to have actually kicked off the modern crossover trend as quickly as it initial strike the scene in 1995. The strategy was fairly much like that still used by the S60 Cross Country: take a routine production auto (initially a Legacy wagon, Despite the fact that a Legacy-based sedan followed at the end of the decade and remained available for several years), include aggressive physique cladding suggestive of an off-road mission statement, and enhance the suspension system several inches to finish the package. Drivetrains were straight ported over from the Legacy, and all-wheel drive was of road standard across the board. Later Subaru Outback models would certainly acquire a couple of added all-terrain tricks, adore hill descent manage (additionally available in the Volvo S60 Cross Country) and a special X-Mode for the AWD system.

1998-present Volvo XC70 (Cross Country)

Volvo was quick to seize on the potential demonstrated by the Subaru Outback and a couple of short years later debuted its initial Cross Country model, known as the Volvo XC70. For all of intents and purposes the XC70 was a V70 that had been to the gym: bulky plastic adorned the bumpers and adverse doors in position of traditional brush bars, AWD was highlighted, and the entire wagon rode taller off of the ground. In the future Volvo, too, would certainly evolve its Cross Country concept, including ground clearance, smoothing out physique work, and eventually extending the name to the smaller sized V60 Cross Country wagon and the brand-new S60 Cross Country sedan.

1999-2005 Audi Allroad

Not wanting to be left from the crossover party, Audi realized that its long history promoting all-wheel drive would certainly serve it well in marketing a tall wagon of its own. The Audi Allroad was a bit much more involved, technologically, compared to any kind of competitor of the exact same era, boasting an air suspension system that could further enhance the wagon’s ground clearance, too as available low-range gearing for its quattro AWD system. Based on the A6 sedan and wagon, the Allroad produced a track record for cantankerous reliability, due in section to the presence of a 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6 engine as standard equipment for North America.

By Thomas doerfer (Own work)

2013-present Audi Allroad

No, that’s not a typo – after several years of hiatus Audi decided to take a second crack at the wagon-based crossover market and kill two birds along with one stone by replacing its slow-selling Audi A4 Avant along with the almost, yet not-rather identical Allroad. This time, Audi played it safe: the brand-new Allroad abandoned the gizmos and gadgets of the original and rather slapped on some physique cladding, added the familiar suspension lift, and borrowed the A4’s turbocharged four-cylinder drivetrain.